TonynJo: All Aboard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O.K., this entry goes out to my closet railroad engineer friend. I'm talking to you, Dick Puller. Last weekend we went to a little town called El Tombo or something like that. Joining us was a new friend, Meg from England. She's English and she teaches English. Now there's some built in authenticity, eh wat. That's her and Joella at the railway station buying tickets for our little train ride.

And here's our ride, the little train that could. It had a Ecquatorian crew of three and an equal number of passengers, two Yanks and a Brit.

It had a round-a-bout on each end of the line and the trip was thirty minutes long and I seriously doubt we ever broke thiry miles an hour. The destination (and it was the only one) was the site of some Canari ruins. The Canari were here long before the Incas.

This little store was across from the station and in front of one of the turn-a-rounds.

This was one of the uglier churches I've seen so far and the highlight of El Tombo's town square.

Here's one of the covered porticos around the square. Notice how it's adorned with a Donald Duck trash can. Possibly part of some third world funding made posible by Disney Corp.

Here's a bug's eye view before impact of our ride.

Railroads of Ecuador

Well, we hadn't gone too far when the engineer spots something suspicious on the track he just drove over and so he sends one of his more qualified crew members out to hand sweep it off the rail. After all, we'll be going back the same way and the debris will probably still be there, so let's sweep it off now and avoid a derailment. Ya sure, as they say in Ballard.

Rolling through the countryside is the part you would have liked best, Engineer Dick.

Plus, all kinds of wildlife along the line.

We arrive at our destination and disembark for the short jaunt to the ruins. The train crew assures us they have nowhere elese to go and will still be here waiting when we've finished with our little look-see.

Oh, and we won't be alone because Rosa, our tour guide, has been waiting for us (or ANYONE) to come along so she could get out of the shack and walk around a bit. Rosa enthusiastically tells us all about the ruins and their history. Of course, it would have been much more informative if we spoke Spanish, but that's hardly Rosa's fault. The locals call the foriegn vistors "extraterraneos" (sp?), but I refer to us as extraterrestials which a few of them on hearing seem to enjoy. Anyway, we three said Si, Si, Si to everything Rosa shared with us and it was a grand afternoon. That Brit's starting to rub off on me.

This was the site of the Royal Baths.

There will be more pictures of the ruins later, this posting was to be about the train ride,

Hang in there.

The countryside on the return trip.

There were a lot of farmyard animals, from tied up sheep to free range chickens on or near the tracks for most of the trip, but, generally, it seemed to be a symbiotic relationship between mammals, fowls and machine.

This shot doesn't show it very well, but there was quite a bit of very nice woodwork of the train such as the overhead roof protecting the back porch of the caboose.